BWBS Ep:133 The Bennington Triangle

In the shadow of Vermont's Glastenbury Mountain lies one of New England's most enduring mysteries, a dark chapter in American history that begins with a simple walk in the woods that ended in oblivion. On November 12, 1945, Middie Rivers, a 74-year-old hunting guide who knew the wilderness like the back of his weathered hands, told his companions he'd walk ahead to their camp. He never arrived. His disappearance would mark the beginning of a five-year period during which five people would vanish in the same remote area of southwestern Vermont, leaving behind grieving families, baffled search parties, and questions that remain unanswered to this day.

This episode delves deep into the haunting history of what author Joseph Citro would later christen the Bennington Triangle, exploring not just the famous disappearances but the centuries of strangeness that preceded them. 

We begin with the ancient Abenaki people, who considered the mountain cursed and warned of a place where the four winds met in eternal struggle, where a malevolent stone could swallow the unwary whole. Their oral traditions speak of the mountain as sacred and dangerous in equal measure, a dwelling place of their god Tabaldak and home to creatures that walked upright like men but were something altogether different. The narrative traces the doomed attempts at settlement from Benning Wentworth's blind charter in 1761 through the brutal logging era that briefly brought prosperity and violence to the mountain. 

We examine the murders that stained the settlement's history, including the chilling 1892 killing of John Crowley by Henry McDowell, who claimed voices in his head commanded him to kill, and who later escaped from a mental hospital to vanish as completely as the mountain's later victims. The story follows Glastenbury's transformation from a rough logging town to a failed tourist resort, destroyed by flooding after just one season, and ultimately to Vermont's first unincorporated town, legally erased from existence in 1937.The heart of our investigation focuses on the five disappearances that would make the Bennington Triangle infamous. 

We explore each case in detail, from Paula Welden, the Bennington College sophomore whose vanishing in a bright red jacket inspired massive searches and the creation of the Vermont State Police, to James Tedford, whose impossible disappearance from a moving bus full of witnesses defies all rational explanation. 

We examine young Paul Jepson, the special needs child who spoke of nothing but the mountains for days before vanishing from his mother's truck, and Frieda Langer, the experienced hiker whose body mysteriously appeared seven months later in an area that had been thoroughly searched.Throughout the narrative, we weave together the various theories that have emerged over the decades to explain these disappearances.

From the possibility of a serial killer stalking the mountain trails to indigenous legends of the Bennington Monster, from interdimensional portals and time slips to the more prosaic but no less terrifying reality of a wilderness that simply doesn't want human presence. We explore how the mountain's unusual geology, with its disorienting wind patterns and hidden sinkholes, might create natural traps that could swallow hikers without a trace.

The episode also examines the cultural impact of the Bennington Triangle, from Shirley Jackson's psychological horror novel "Hangsaman" to modern paranormal investigations and the continuing reports of strange experiences on Glastenbury Mountain. We discuss contemporary encounters, including hikers who report inexplicable disorientation, time distortions, and the overwhelming feeling of being watched by something in the dense forest.

We also take a look at recent incidents like the 2008 case of Robert Singley, who became lost on the same trail where Paula Welden vanished despite modern equipment and clear weather, finding the landscape seemed to change around him as he walked. Drawing from historical documents, newspaper archives, census records, and indigenous oral traditions, this comprehensive investigation presents the most complete picture possible of the Bennington Triangle mystery.

We explore how a place that once housed 241 souls now officially contains just eight residents, how the forest has reclaimed most traces of human habitation, and how the mountain continues to exert its strange influence on those who venture onto its slopes.

This is more than just a true crime story or a collection of ghost tales. It's an exploration of how landscapes can become legendary, how unexplained tragedies transform into folklore, and how some mysteries endure precisely because they resist solution.

The Bennington Triangle stands as a reminder that even in our mapped and measured world, there remain places where people can simply step off the p

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace.
Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world
refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they
know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we
share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness Bigfoot,

(00:23):
dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make
it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because
once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the
woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close and
remember some things in the woods don't want to be found.
Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads,

(00:46):
and let's head off into the woods if you dare.
The sun was already beginning its descent behind the Vermont
Mountains when Midi Rivers told the other hunters he'd walk ahead.

(01:10):
It was November twelfth, nineteen forty five, a crisp autumn
day that had started, like countless others in the seventy
four year old guide's long career leading hunting parties through
the wilderness around Glastonbury Mountain, Rivers knew these woods like
the lines on his weathered hands, every trail, every hollow,
every stream. He'd walk them for decades, in all seasons,

(01:33):
in all weather. His son in law, Joe, and the
three other hunters in their party trusted him implicitly. Why
wouldn't they. Middy Rivers was as much a part of
these mountains as the ancient hemlocks that towered above them.
I'll meet you back at camp, he called over his
shoulder as he moved ahead near hell Hollow Brook, his
rifle comfortable in his grip, his step sure despite his age.

(01:56):
The other hunters thought nothing of it. Mity often liked
to scout ahead, and he always knew exactly where he
was going. They continued at their own pace, expecting to
find him waiting at their camp, with coffee already brewing,
and probably a story or two about the deer sign
he'd spotted for tomorrow's hunt. But Middy Rivers never made
it back to camp, not that evening. Not ever, when

(02:18):
darkness fell and Rivers hadn't returned, his hunting companions weren't
immediately worried. Mitty knew how to handle himself in the
woods at night, but as the hours stretched on and
the temperature dropped, concern grew into alarm. By morning, when
there was still no sign of the experienced woodsmen, they
raised the alert. What followed was one of the largest

(02:39):
search operations Vermont had seen. Hundreds of volunteers, National Guard
troops from Fort Devons and Massachusetts, local hunters who knew
the area almost as well as Rivers himself. They combed
every inch of the woods around Hell Hollow, calling his
name until their voices went hoarse. Many locals remained convinced
that Rivers, with all his wilderness knowledge, would simply walk

(03:02):
out of the woods one day with a tail of adventure.
Some thought he might have suffered a heart attack or
stroke and would be found sheltering in some hidden grove.
But as days turned to weeks and autumn turned to winter,
hope faded like footprints in fresh snow. The following spring,
a lone hiker found something, a handkerchief that might have
belonged to Rivers, discovered on a trail some distance from

(03:25):
where he'd last been seen. Nothing else, no body, no rifle,
no torn clothing caught on branches, no sign of struggle
or accident. It was as if midy Rivers had simply
stepped between the trees and fallen through a crack in
the world. He would not be the last. Long before
European settlers ever laid eyes on the densely forested slopes

(03:47):
of what would become known as Glastonbury Mountain, the indigenous
Abenaki people understood that some places were not meant for
the living. The mountain, which rises three thousand, seven hundred
and forty seven feet into the Vermont sky, commanding the
surrounding wilderness with its brooding presence, was to them a
place of profound, spiritual significance and danger. The Abenaki called

(04:11):
it the place where the four winds meet, and they
spoke of it in hushed, reverent tones. According to their traditions,
the mountain was cursed, a realm where the natural order
of things became twisted and uncertain. The winds that met
at its peak didn't behave like winds should. They changed
direction without warning, turned warm to cold in an instant,

(04:33):
whispered things that sounded almost like words, but never quite
resolved into meaning. These erratic wind patterns were said to
disorient travelers, leading them in circles until they no longer
knew which direction led to safety. The native peoples had
lived in the fertile valleys of what is now Vermont
for thousands of years, fishing the rivers, hunting the forests,

(04:55):
gathering from the land in a sustainable cycle that had
sustained their ancestors since time immemorial. They knew every mountain pass,
every seasonal hunting ground, every place where medicinal plants grew,
But Glastonbury Mountain they avoided venturing onto its slopes only
for one purpose, to bury their dead. The Abenaki told

(05:16):
stories passed down through generations, of a malevolent stone somewhere
on the mountain, a rock that looked like any other
until you stepped on it. Then, according to legend, it
would open up like a mouth and swallow the unlucky traveler,
hole closing again so quickly and completely that no trace
would remain. Whether this was metaphor or genuine belief, Whether

(05:40):
it referred to some treacherous geological feature like a hidden
sink hole, or represented something more supernatural, the warning was clear,
stay away. They also spoke of creatures that dwelt in
the mountain shadow, great hairy beings half man and half beast,
that walked upright like humans, but stood taller than any
person in dark fur with eyes that gleamed in the darkness.

(06:04):
These creatures, similar to what other indigenous peoples elsewhere called
sasquatch or Windigo, were said to be hostile to human intrusion.
Some stories suggested they were once human themselves, transformed by
the mountain's curse or by breaking ancient taboos. The Abenaki
supreme deity, called Tabaldoc or Geechee nu wask, meaning great Spirit,

(06:26):
was said to dwell at the mountain's peak. This was
not a comforting presence like the Christian God watching benevolently
over his flock, but something vast and incomprehensible, beautiful and
terrible in equal measure. The mountain was sacred precisely because
it was dangerous, a place where the membrane between the
physical and spiritual worlds grew thin, where the normal rules

(06:49):
didn't always apply. When Benning Wentworth, the controversial and land
hungry governor of New Hampshire, chartered the town of Glastonbury
in seventeen sixty one, he did so sight unseen, drawing
lines on a map with no understanding of the terrain
he was parceling out. Wentworth was engaged in a complex
political game, granting townships in what would become Vermont as

(07:12):
a way of asserting New Hampshire's claim to the territory
against New York's competing interests. He made sure to reserve
choice plots for himself in each charter, a practice that
would eventually contribute to his downfall. But Wentworth never set
foot on Glastonbury Mountain. If he had, he might have
understood why it would take decades for anyone to actually

(07:32):
attempt settling there. The early colonists who received land grants
in Glastonbury took one look at the steep, rocky slopes,
the brief growing season, and the dense, seemingly impenetrable forests,
and most decided to try their fortunes elsewhere. The few
families who did attempt to settle in the late seventeen
hundreds found life unbearably hard. The soil was thin and rocky,

(07:57):
scraped nearly bare by ancient glaciers. The weather was unpredictable
and harsh. The forests were so thick that clearing land
for farming was a herculean task that yielded little reward.
Vermont's first census as a state in seventeen ninety one
recorded only six families living in all of Glastonbury. By
eighteen hundred, those six families had been entirely replaced by

(08:19):
eight different families. The original settlers had all given up
and moved on. Of those eight, only three would remain
by the eighteen ten census, and of those three, only
one family would persist into the following decades. It was
as if the mountain itself was rejecting human habitation, spitting
out those who tried to cling to its slopes. The

(08:41):
few settlers who did manage to maintain a foothold told
strange stories. They spoke of sounds in the night that
weren't quite animal and weren't quite human. They reported seeing
lights moving through the forests where no one should be,
lights that didn't behave like lanterns or torches. They complained
of a persistent feeling of being watched, even when alone

(09:01):
in their cabins. Some reported that their compasses would spin
wildly in certain areas that time seemed to move differently
in the deep woods, that they would set out on
familiar trails only to find themselves inexplicably lost. One early
account from the seventeen sixties, recorded in a settler's journal
that survived in the Vermont Historical Society archives describes a

(09:24):
haunting experience. The forest here is unlike any I have
known in my forty years. There are places where no
birds sing, where even the insects fall silent. Yesterday I
followed what I was certain was the trail to my
neighbor's farm, only to find myself at my own door
three hours later. Though I had walked continuously away from it.

(09:47):
My wife says I was gone for six hours, though
it seemed to me no more than three. I begin
to understand why the Indians avoid this place. Everything changed
after the Civil War. The industrialization that was transforming America
created an insatiable demand for charcoal to fuel iron foundries
and other industries. Suddenly, Glastonbury's seemingly endless forests weren't a liability.

(10:11):
They were a resource. The town's population, which had struggled
to reach fifty people by eighteen forty, exploded to two
hundred forty one by eighteen eighty. It was the first
and only time Glastonbury would experience anything resembling prosperity. Two
small settlements emerged, Fayville in the north, near the Bennington

(10:32):
town Line and South Glastonbury, also called the Forks, where
two branches of Bowlbrook converged. The terrain was so rugged
that no road ever connected the two villages. They might
as well have been on different planets, but both were
connected to the outside world by one crucial lifeline, the railroad.

(10:53):
The logging railroad that snaked up into the mountains was
an engineering marvel and a death trap in equal measure.
Built hastily to extract maximum profit from the forest, it
featured grades so steep that runaway cars were common, curves
so sharp that derailments were almost routine. Workers rode the
log cars down the mountain at terrifying speeds, and more

(11:15):
than a few didn't survive the journey. The company that
owned the railroad also owned the company store, the boarding
houses where workers lived, and essentially owned the workers themselves
through a system of debt that kept them trapped in
the mountains. South Glastonbury in particular, developed a reputation as
a rough place, a frontier town in the heart of

(11:35):
New England where normal rules of civilized behavior didn't always apply.
The population was overwhelmingly male, mostly transient workers who followed
the logging jobs alcohol flowed freely, probably the only thing
that made the harsh conditions bearable. Fights were common, law
enforcement was nearly non existent. It was in this environment

(11:57):
that the first documented murder on Glasston Mountain took place.
On a cold April day in eighteen ninety two, two
laggers got into an argument that would end with one
of them did and contribute to the beginning of Glastonbury's
final decline. Henry McDowell, though his real name was William Conroy,
was like many of the men who worked the logging camps,

(12:19):
running from something in his past, working under an assumed name,
quick to anger and slow to back down from a fight.
On that April day in eighteen ninety two, he encountered
John Crowley, a thirty eight year old fellow logger, in
the woods near Fayville. What exactly was said between them
is lost to history. Perhaps it was about money owed,

(12:40):
or a woman, or simply the kind of petty dispute
that turns deadly when violent men are involved. What is
known is that McDowell picked up a rock or possibly
a piece of wood. Accounts differ, and struck Crowley in
the head with tremendous force. But Crowley didn't die immediately.
He lingered, conscious but more ortally wounded, while McDowell waited nearby.

(13:03):
The killer didn't flee immediately, didn't try to help his victim,
just waited in the woods for John Crowley to die.
When Crowley finally succumbed to his injuries, McDowell fled south,
making it all the way to Connecticut before being apprehended.
At his trial, McDowell claimed he heard voices, voices that
commanded him to kill, voices that wouldn't leave him alone

(13:25):
until he obeyed. Whether this was genuine mental illness or
a calculated attempt to avoid the gallows, it worked. McDowell
was sentenced not to death, but to incarceration at the
Waterbury State Mental Hospital, about one hundred twenty miles from Glastonbury.
At the hospital, McDowell was considered a model patient. He

(13:45):
worked on the grounds, tending gardens, seeming calm and rational.
The staff began to trust him. That trust was misplaced.
One day, McDowell hid himself in a load of coal
being delivered from the hospital. By the time his absence
was discovered, he had vanished completely. Despite searches and wanted posters.
Henry McDowell or William Conroy, or whatever his real name was,

(14:09):
was never seen again. Some said he fled the state,
others that he returned to Glastonbury's forest to hide. A
few claimed to have seen him over the years, living
wild in the mountains, more animal than man. The second
murder came just five years later. On November eighth, eighteen
ninety seven, the opening day of Vermont's first regulated deer

(14:31):
hunting season, John Harbor, a father of four, was found
dead in the woods. He'd been shot, but the circumstances
were mysterious. No one was ever charged, No clear motive
was ever established accident murder. The mountain kept its secrets.
These violent deaths, combined with the increasingly cutthroat nature of

(14:53):
the logging business and the depletion of easily accessible timber,
marked the beginning of the end for Glastonbury as a
function town. The charcoal kilns went cold, the logging camps emptied,
the railroad that vital lifeline began to fall into disrepair.
Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back

(15:13):
after these messages. In eighteen ninety four, a group of
investors looked at Glastonbury's abandoned infrastructure and saw opportunity. If
the mountain couldn't support industry, perhaps it could support tourism.
The grand plan was to transform South Glastonbury into a
summer resort, a cool mountain retreat for wealthy urban nights

(15:35):
seeking to escape the heat and grime of cities. The
transformation was ambitious. The old Loggers boarding house was renovated
into a hotel. The company store and apartment building were
converted into a casino. The utilitarian work trains were replaced
with a festive trolley that would carry eager tourists up
the mountain in style. For one brief, shining summer in

(15:57):
eighteen ninety eight, it seemed like glaston and Berry might
have found new life. Opening day was a grand affair.
The trolley was decorated with bunting, A band played, and
curious tourists made the journey up the mountain to see
this new playground in the wilderness. The casino's gaming tables
were busy, the hotel's dining room served elaborate meals, and

(16:18):
for a moment it was possible to forget the mountain's
dark history. But the mountain had other plans That autumn,
after just one season of operation, a massive flood roared
down from the peaks. With most of the trees gone
from decades of clearcutting, there was nothing to slow the
water's destructive force. The flood destroyed the railroad tracks, washing

(16:40):
away bridges and trestles that had taken years to build.
It damaged the hotel and casino beyond repair. In one
violent night, the mountain reclaimed what humans had tried to take.
The investors, facing financial ruin, abandoned the project. The trolley
made its last run. The hotel and casino were left

(17:00):
to rot. Within a few years, the buildings were empty shells,
their broken windows staring blindly at the encroaching forest. The
few remaining residents of Glastonbury began to drift away, seeking
opportunities in towns that weren't cursed, on mountains that didn't
swallow people whole. By the nineteen thirties, Glastonbury had become

(17:21):
such a curiosity that it attracted the attention of Ripley's
Believe It or Not. The newspaper feature highlighted the fact
that the town's entire population consisted of just three people,
the Madison family, who between them held every official position
in the town government. Mister Madison was simultaneously the selectman,
town clerk, and tax collector. Missus Madison was the treasurer

(17:44):
and school board. Though there were no children to educate.
Their son rounded out the triumvirate of what might have
been America's smallest functioning democracy. But even the Madisons couldn't
hold on forever. In nineteen thirty seven, the Vermont Ledge
Wis took the unprecedented step of unincorporating the town of Glastonbury.

(18:05):
For the first time in the state's history, a town
simply ceased to exist as a legal entity. The buildings
were abandoned to the elements. The roads, what few there were,
were no longer maintained. The forest, patient and inexorable began
to reclaim the land. Glastonbury had become a ghost town,

(18:25):
but the ghosts, it seemed, were just getting started. When
Midy Rivers vanished on November twelfth, nineteen forty five, it
sent shockwaves through the communities surrounding Glastonbury Mountain. This wasn't
some inexperienced city person who'd wandered off a trail. Rivers
was seventy four years old and had spent most of
those years in these very woods. He was the person

(18:47):
other guide's turned to for advice. He knew where to
find deer when no one else could knew which streams held.
Trout knew how to read the weather in the movement
of clouds across the peaks. The search for rivers was
massive and methodical. The Vermont State Guard was mobilized. Soldiers
from Fort Devns and Massachusetts were brought in. Local volunteers

(19:09):
who knew the area joined the effort. They formed human
chains and walked slowly through the woods, checking every hollow,
every cave, every place where an injured or ill man
might seek shelter. The searchers were confident they would find him,
as one search party leader told reporters, numerous people had
been lost in the region over the decades, but all

(19:30):
had eventually been recovered, alive or dead. The woods might
be vast, but they weren't infinite. A body, especially the
body of a man carrying a rifle and wearing hunting clothes,
should be findable, but as days turned into weeks, that
confidence evaporated. The only potential clue came the following spring,

(19:51):
when a hiker found a handkerchief that might have belonged
to Rivers. It was discovered on a trail some distance
from where he disappeared, which raised more questions. Then it
answered how had it gotten there? Had Rivers tried to
mark his path, had he been carried or dragged? Or
was it just a coincidence someone else's handkerchief entirely? The

(20:11):
prevailing theory was that Rivers had suffered a medical emergency,
a heart attack or stroke, and died somewhere in the woods.
But why couldn't they find his body? Animals might scatter remains,
but they don't make them disappear entirely. His rifle, at
least should have been discoverable. Metal doesn't decompose like flesh.

(20:32):
Some of the old timers, those who remembered the stories
their grandparents had told, began to whisper about the mountain's curse.
They recalled the Abenaki warnings, the strange incidents from the
logging days, the fact that Glastonbury had never been able
to sustain human habitation for long. Maybe, they suggested quietly,
usually after a few drinks, maybe some places just weren't

(20:55):
meant for people. Just over a year later, on December first,
nineteen forty Paula Jean Weldon became the most famous victim
of what would eventually be called the Bennington Triangle in
eighteen year old sophomore at Bennington College, Paula was bright, artistic,
and adventurous. On that Sunday afternoon, she told her roommate

(21:15):
she was going for a walk on the Long Trail,
Vermont's famous hiking path that runs along the spine of
the Green Mountains. Paula was wearing a bright red jacket,
a detail that would be burned into the memory of
everyone who saw her that day and would haunt the
dreams of those who searched for her. She hitchhiked from
the college to the trailhead, a common practice at the time.

(21:37):
Louis Napp, a local contractor, gave her a ride part
of the way. He remembered thinking she wasn't dressed for
a serious hike. Besides the red jacket, she wore jeans
and light sneakers, no pack, no supplies for the cold
night that was coming. Several people saw Paula on or
near the trail that afternoon. A Bennington Banner employee gave

(21:58):
her directions. An elderly couple walking about one hundred yards
behind her on the trail provided the last confirmed sighting.
They reported that they saw her turn a corner on
the trail ahead of them. When they reached the same
spot just moments later, she was gone. Not ahead on
the trail, not off to either side, simply gone. When

(22:20):
Paula didn't return to her dorm that night, her roommate
assumed she decided to stay with friends. It wasn't until
she failed to appear for Monday morning classes that alarm
bells started ringing. The search that followed was even larger
than the one from Mitty Rivers. The FBI got involved.
A five thousand dollars reward was offered a substantial sum.

(22:41):
In nineteen forty six aircraft flew over the mountains. More
than one thousand people participated in the ground search. The
search for Paula Weldon exposed the inadequacies of Vermont's law
enforcement infrastructure. There was no state police force at the time,
and the local sheriffs were overwhelmed by the complexity of
coordinating such a massive operation. Paula's father, w Archibald Weldon,

(23:05):
was devastated by both his daughter's disappearance and what he
saw as the bungled search effort. His criticism was harsh
and public, and it stung. Seven months after Paula vanished,
Vermont established its state Police Force, with the Welden case
specifically cited as demonstrating the need for a professional, statewide
law enforcement agency. It was a bitter legacy for a

(23:28):
young woman who had simply wanted to take a walk
in the woods. Theories about Paula's fate multiplied like mushrooms
after rain. Some thought she'd committed suicide, though friends and
family insisted she'd shown no signs of depression. Others suspected murder.
Perhaps she'd accepted a ride from the wrong person. There
were rumors of a serial killer, speculation about a secret boyfriend,

(23:52):
even suggestions that she deliberately disappeared to start a new
life elsewhere. The lack of any physical evidence was maddening.
No body, no clothing, no sign of struggle. The red
jacket that should have been visible from a distance, that
should have caught on branches or been spotted by aircraft,
was nowhere to be found. It was as if Paula

(24:13):
Weldon had stepped off the trail and out of existence entirely.
The case would inspire Shirley Jackson, who was living in
North Bennington at the time, to write her novel hansomen
A disturbing exploration of a young woman's psychological disintegration at
a college very much like Bennington. Jackson, famous for her
horror riding, understood that sometimes the most terrifying mysteries are

(24:36):
the ones without answers. If the disappearance of Paula Weldon
seemed impossible, what happened to James E. Tedford on December first,
nineteen forty nine, exactly three years to the day after
Paula vanished, seemed to defy the laws of physics. Tedford
was a sixty eight year old veteran of World War One,
a resident of the Vermont Soldier's Home in Bennington. He'd

(24:59):
been visited relatives in Saint Albans, Vermont, and was returning
home on a public bus. This wasn't a hiking trip
into the wilderness. This was a routine journey on public transportation,
surrounded by other passengers. Multiple witnesses saw Tedford board the
bus in Saint Albans. At the stop in Burlington, he
got off briefly and had a conversation with an acquaintance

(25:21):
who later confirmed seeing him get back on the Bennington
bound bus. The bus driver and several passengers confirmed that
Tedford was in his seat as late as the last
stop before Bennington, but when the bus pulled into the
Bennington station, Tedford was gone. His luggage remained in the
overhead rack. An open bus timetable lay on his empty seat,

(25:42):
as if he just stepped away for a moment. But
James Tedford was nowhere to be found, not on the bus,
not in the station, not anywhere. How does someone disappear
from a moving bus. The vehicle hadn't made any unscheduled stops.
No one had seen Tedford get up from his seat,
much less exit the bus. The driver was adamant that

(26:03):
all doors had remained closed while the bus was in motion.
It was as if Tedford had simply evaporated. There were,
of course, attempts at rational explanation. One theory suggested that
Tedford had gotten off at an earlier stop and the
witnesses were mistaken about seeing him after Burlington, but multiple
passengers independently confirmed his presence. Another theory proposed that he'd

(26:26):
suffered some kind of mental break. Newspapers reported that Tedford
was mentally ill, and his family described him as despondent
about returning to the soldier's home. Perhaps he'd somehow slipped
off the bus during a stop without anyone noticing. But
even if he had managed to leave the bus unseen,
where did he go. Searches of the route turned up nothing.

(26:48):
His relatives, thinking he might have changed his mind about
returning to Bennington, checked with friends and family elsewhere, no
one had seen him. There was one strange detail that
emerged later. The bus driver reported to police that a
man resembling Tedford might have gotten off in the village
of Brandon, about seventy miles north of Bennington. That same night,

(27:09):
Brandon police investigated a report of a man fitting Tedford's
description acting queerly in the village's downtown. But if this
was Tedford, he vanished again before police could locate him.
The fact that Tedford's disappearance occurred on the exact anniversary
of Paula Weldon's vanishing didn't go unnoticed. Was it coincidence

(27:29):
a copycat who had chosen to disappear on that date,
or was there something about December first some significance to
that date in the Bennington triangle that made it particularly dangerous.
Paul Jepson was not quite like other eight year old
boys described in newspaper accounts as having nervous defects and
runaway streaks. Paul was what today would likely be recognized

(27:52):
as a special needs child. He didn't attend regular school.
His parents, both former teachers, kept him close, aware of
his tendency to wander. On October twelfth, nineteen fifty, Paul
accompanied his mother to the Bennington Town Dump, where his
parents worked as part time caretakers. It was a routine trip.
Missus Jepson needed to tend to the pigs they kept there,

(28:15):
moving them to a different section of the property. She
told Paul to stay in the truck while she worked.
It would only take about half an hour. When she
returned to the truck sometime between three and four pm,
Paul was gone. At first, she thought he just wandered
off to explore, as he sometimes did. She called his
name searched the immediate area, but as the minutes ticked

(28:37):
by with no response, panic set in. The dump was
near the base of Glastonbury Mountain, surrounded by dense forest.
A small boy could disappear into those woods in seconds
and be impossible to find. The search for Paul Jepson
mobilized the community in a way that recalled the hunt
for PAULA. Weldon four years earlier. Bloodhounds were brought in

(28:59):
and quickly picked up the boys sent They tracked it
from the dump down the road for about two miles
to the intersection of East and Chapel Roads. There, at
a spot that was on the route to Glastonbury Mountain,
the trail abruptly ended, as if Paul had simply vanished
into thin air or into a vehicle. At that intersection,
searchers found a pair of men's gloves on some rocks.

(29:21):
Were they connected to Paul's disappearance. Had someone taken the boy,
or were they just gloves someone had lost? A coincidence
that meant nothing. Paul's father told reporters something that sent
chills through the community. The boy had been talking about
the mountains for days before he disappeared. He talked of
nothing else. Mister Jepson said. It was as if something

(29:42):
had been calling to Paul, drawing him toward Glastonbury Mountain.
That night, as hundreds of searchers combed the woods, it
began to rain a cold, heavy rain that would wash
away any scent trail and make the search infinitely harder.
Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back
after these messages. Paul was wearing only blue pants and

(30:06):
a red sweater, completely unprepared for the harsh weather. If
he was out there in the woods, his chances of
survival were slim and growing slimmer by the hour. The
search continued for days, then weeks. Aircraft flew over the forests,
Volunteers walked shoulder to shoulder through the underbrush. The nearby
Somerset Reservoir was searched by boats, but no trace of

(30:29):
Paul Jepson was ever found. No clothing, no body, nothing.
Some believed Paul had been abducted, that the ending of
the scent trail at a road intersection suggested he'd gotten
into or been forced into a vehicle, But no one
had seen a struggle, No one had heard a child
crying or calling for help, and what kidnapper would choose

(30:51):
to snatch a child from a dump and broad daylight
when the child's mother was just yards away. Others, including
Paul's father, seemed to believe something more mysterious was at work.
His comment about the lure of the mountains suggested he
thought Paul had been somehow drawn away, called by something
in those ancient peaks that adults couldn't hear or understand.

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Freda Langer was everything the other victims were not. At
fifty three, she was an experienced hiker and outdoors woman,
completely at home in the wilderness. She knew the area
around Glastonbury Mountain well, had hiked there many times. She
was with other people when she disappeared, and unlike the others,
her body would eventually be found, though that would only

(31:34):
deepen the mystery. On October twenty eighth, nineteen fifty, just
sixteen days after Paul Jepson vanished, Freda set out with
her cousin, Herbert Elsner for what should have been a
routine hike near the Somerset Reservoir. Her husband stayed back
at their camp site, nursing an injured knee. The day
was clear, the trail was familiar, and Frieda was in

(31:55):
good spirits. About half a mile from camp, while crossing
a stream, Freeda slipped and fell into the water. She
was soaked but unhurt. Laughing about her clumsiness, she told
Herbert to wait for her. She would run back to camp,
change into dry clothes, and rejoin him. The campsite was
only a few hundred yards away. It should have taken

(32:16):
her ten minutes fifteen at most. Herbert waited and waited.
After an hour, Annoyed and concerned, he hiked back to
the campsite himself, expecting to find that Freda had decided
to stay by the warm fire in her dry clothes.
But she had never arrived. Her husband hadn't seen her,
no one had. The distance Freda had to cover was

(32:38):
so short, the trail so clear, that at first everyone
assumed she must have somehow gotten turned around, maybe taken
a wrong path. But Freda knew these woods. She wouldn't
make such a basic mistake. The search for Freda Langer
was massive. Four hundred people, including National Guard troops, volunteers,
local fire departments, helicopters from the Connecticut Coast Guard and

(33:02):
US Army joined the hunt. Aircraft from the Vermont Aeronautics
Commission flew systematic patterns over the forest. The Somerset Reservoir
was searched thoroughly, divers checking the depths while boats patrolled
the shores. The search was particularly intensive because Freda had
a seizure disorder. Her husband speculated that the shock of

(33:22):
the cold water might have triggered a seizure, leaving her
disoriented and unable to find her way. If she was
lying somewhere unconscious or unable to call for help, time
was critical, but days passed with no sign of her.
The search area was expanded, then expanded again. Every cave,
every ravine, every thick stand of brush was checked and rechecked.

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The autumn leaves were falling, which should have made it
easier to spot someone in a red jacket. For Freda,
like Paula Weldon, had been wearing red, but she seemed
to have vanished as completely as the others. Then, on
May twelfth, nineteen fifty one, almost seven months after she disappeared,
Frida Langer's body was found. The location was baffling, near

(34:10):
the Somerset Reservoir, in an open area that had been
searched repeatedly in the days and weeks after her disappearance.
Searchers had walked through that exact spot multiple times. How
had they missed a body lying in the open. The
condition of the remains made it impossible to determine a
cause of death. The long Vermont winter, with its cycles

(34:31):
of freezing and thawing snow and rain, had accelerated decomposition,
but the medical examiner found no obvious signs of violence,
no broken bones that would suggest a fall, no bullet
wounds or knife marks. The discovery of Frida's body raised
more questions than it answered. If she had been there
all along, how had hundreds of searchers missed her. If

(34:54):
she hadn't been there all along, who or what had
moved her body, and why place it somewhere it would
have eventually be found, rather than hiding it permanently. Some
suggested that the winter snows had covered the body and
it only became visible during the spring thaw, but the
area where she was found was open, wind swept, not
a place where snow would accumulate deeply enough to hide

(35:16):
a body for months. Others proposed that animals had dragged
the body to that location from somewhere else, but there
were no signs of animal predation on the remains, no
scattered bones or torn clothing. The most disturbing theory was
that someone or something had deliberately placed Frieda's body where
it would be found long after the initial search had ended,

(35:38):
but who would do such a thing and why? Long
before the disappearances of the nineteen forties, residents of the
area around Glastonbury Mountain had reported encounters with something that
shouldn't exist, a creature that walked like a man, but
stood taller than any human, covered in dark hair, with
eyes that reflected light like an animal's. One of the

(35:59):
early these documented accounts dates to the early eighteen hundreds,
when a stagecoach traveling through the area was forced to
stop due to a washed out road. While the passengers
waited for repairs, the driver noticed enormous footprints in the mud,
footprints that looked almost human but were far too large.
As he was pointing them out to the passengers, the

(36:20):
coach was suddenly struck by something massive. The vehicle was
knocked onto its side, windows shattering, passengers screaming. In the chaos,
they caught glimpses of their attacker, a huge, dark, hairy
figure with glowing eyes. The creature roared a sound unlike
any animal they knew, and disappeared into the forest. Throughout

(36:43):
the nineteenth century, similar reports surfaced periodically. Hunters spoke of
finding tracks that made no sense of hearing calls in
the night that sounded almost like language, but not quite.
There were stories of livestock being killed in ways that
didn't match the hunting patterns of known predators, Bodies found
high in trees or torn apart with the strength no

(37:03):
wolf or bear could match. In eighteen sixty seven, there
was a flurry of sightings of what newspapers called a
wild man. This figure was described as human in shape
but covered in hair, living in a cave somewhere on
the mountain. Some accounts suggested this was a hermit who
had gone mad and reverted to an animal state. Others

(37:25):
insisted what they'd seen was never human at all. The
advent of the logging industry brought more people into close
contact with Glastonbury's wilderness, and with that came more encounters.
Loggers reported finding shelters in the deep woods, rough structures
made of woven branches and bark that were too large
for any human to have built for themselves. They found

(37:47):
areas where the trees were marked with claw marks too
high for any bear to reach. They heard whistles in
the night that seemed to come from multiple sources, as
if the creatures were communicating with each other. One logger,
writing in eighteen eighty five, described an encounter that left
him so shaken he quit his job and left Vermont entirely.

(38:08):
I was marking trees for cutting when I heard breathing
behind me, deep, heavy breathing, like a winded horse. I
turned and saw it standing between two pines, watching me.
It was shaped like a man, but covered in dark
brown hair. Its eyes were what haunted me, intelligent eyes,
knowing eyes. We stared at each other for what felt

(38:29):
like hours but was probably seconds. Then it turned and
walked away, walked, not ran like it wasn't afraid of
me at all. I ran. I'm not ashamed to say it.
I ran and didn't stop until I reached camp. After
the nineteen forties disappearances, some people began to connect the dots.

(38:50):
Could the Bennington Monster be responsible. The theory had a
certain appeal. It would explain why no bodies were found.
Perhaps the creature carried them off to some hidden layer
deep in the mountains. It would explain the lack of evidence.
A creature that had avoided discovery for centuries would know
how to cover its tracks. But the theory also had problems.

(39:12):
The victims were diverse in age and physical condition. Would
such a creature take a small boy like Paul Jepson,
but also a strong young woman like Paula Weldon? And
what about James Tedford who disappeared from a bus? No bigfoot,
no matter how clever could board a moving vehicle unnoticed. Still,

(39:32):
the sightings continued. In the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties,
there were multiple reports of large, hairy bipedal creatures in
the Green Mountain National Forest. In two thousand and three,
a couple camping near Glastonbury Mountain reported hearing talking outside
their tent in the middle of the night, voices that
sounded almost human, but not quite, speaking no language they recognized.

(39:56):
When they finally worked up the courage to look outside,
they found a noise ormous footprints around their campsite. For
those who preferred human monsters to cryptozoological ones, the serial
killer theory offered a more conventional explanation for the disappearances.
The timing five people vanishing within a five year period
suggested a pattern. Serial killers often operate within a specific

(40:19):
geographic area, and the Bennington Triangle would provide an ideal
hunting ground. Isolated heavily forested, with numerous places to hide
bodies where they might never be found. Proponents of this
theory pointed out several compelling facts. First, the disappearances stopped
abruptly after nineteen fifty. This could indicate that the killer died,

(40:41):
was imprisoned for another crime, or moved away from the area. Second,
while the victims were diverse, they all shared one characteristic vulnerability.
An elderly man alone in the woods, a young woman
hiking by herself, a confused veteran, a special needs child,
a middle aged woman who had become separated from her group.

(41:03):
All would have been relatively easy targets for a predator.
There were even potential suspects. The escaped murderer, Henry McDowell
was never found after fleeing the state mental hospital. Could
he have been living wild in the mountains, his madness
deepening with isolation, preying on those who ventured too close
to his hiding places. Some pointed to the strange case

(41:25):
of the wild Man's sightings in eighteen sixty seven. Perhaps
not a creature, but a human who had chosen to
live outside society, someone who had developed a taste for
hunting the most dangerous game the discovery of Frieda. Langer's
body in a place that had been thoroughly searched suggested
human intervention. Perhaps the killer had hidden the body elsewhere initially,

(41:47):
then moved it once the search died down. This would
require local knowledge, familiarity with the search patterns, and a
disturbing level of cold calculation. But the serial killer theory
had its weaknesses too. Serial Killers typically have a type,
a preferred victim profile. The Bennington Triangle victims varied wildly

(42:07):
in age from eight to seventy four, gender, and physical condition.
Serial Killers also typically follow a pattern in their methodology,
but these disappearances showed no consistent method and, perhaps most tellingly,
serial killers usually want their crimes to be discovered eventually.
They leave bodies where they'll be found. They taunt police,

(42:29):
They crave recognition for their crimes. The complete absence of
most of the bodies suggested something else entirely. There was
also the problem of James Tedford. No serial killer, no
matter how clever, could make someone disappear from a moving
bus full of witnesses, unless some suggested darkly the killer
was the bus driver himself, and all the passengers were

(42:52):
somehow in on the conspiracy, but this seemed to stretch
credibility beyond breaking point. As the years passed, the conventional
explanations failed to satisfy, more exotic theories emerged. Some researchers
in the paranormal suggested that Glastonbury Mountain might be home
to some kind of dimensional anomaly, a place where the

(43:13):
fabric of reality was worn thin, where it was possible
to slip from our world into somewhere else. This theory
drew on multiple sources. First, there were the Abenaki legends
about the mountain being a place where the four winds met,
perhaps not literally winds, but dimensional currents, forces beyond normal

(43:34):
human perception. The Native people's avoidance of the area and
their belief in a stone that could swallow people whole,
might have been their way of describing phenomena they couldn't
fully understand. Proponents of this theory pointed to the numerous
reports of disorientation on the mountain. Experienced hikers found themselves
walking in circles, compasses spun wildly. People reported time distortions,

(43:58):
thinking they'd been walking for an hour only to discover
that three hours had passed, or vice versa. In two
thousand and eight, a composer named Robert Singly got lost
on the same trail where Paula Weldon had vanished. Despite
being an experienced hiker with modern equipment, he became completely disoriented.
His car, which he believed was less than a mile away,

(44:20):
turned out to be seven miles distant. The trail looked
completely different when he tried to retrace his steps, with
fallen trees and landmarks he didn't remember passing. The interdimensional gateway.
Theory would explain why bodies were never found. They weren't
in our dimension anymore. It would explain James Tedford's impossible
disappearance from the bus. Perhaps the bus had passed through

(44:43):
some kind of anomaly that transported him elsewhere while leaving
the other passengers unaffected. It might even explain Frida Langer's
body appearing in a previously searched area. Perhaps she had
been pulled into another dimension and then returned dead months later.
Stay tu tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be
back after these messages. Some connected this to the broader

(45:08):
phenomenon of thin places found in various cultures worldwide, locations
where the boundary between worlds was believed to be permeable.
These places were often mountains like Glastonbury, were associated with
unusual weather patterns like the meeting of the four winds,
and were avoided by indigenous peoples. Like the Abenaki's avoidance

(45:30):
of Glastonbury. The theory gained additional support from the numerous
UFO sidings reported in the area over the decades. Strange
lights had been seen over Glastonbury Mountains since at least
the seventeen sixties, when Benning Wentworth himself reported seeing odd,
flashing lights in the sky. In the nineteen sixties and
nineteen seventies, there were multiple reports of disc shaped objects

(45:53):
hovering over the mountain. Some suggested these weren't extraterrestrial craft,
but interdimensional ones, vehicles, or beings moving between parallel worlds.
Perhaps the oldest and most persistent explanation was also the simplest.
The mountain was cursed. The Abenaki had always said so,
and everything that had happened since seemed to confirm it.

(46:16):
Every attempt at settlement had failed. The town had literally
ceased to exist. People who ventured onto the mountain disappeared.
Those who didn't disappear reported experiences that defied rational explanation.
Some pointed to the geology of the area as a
possible scientific basis for the curse. Glastonbury Mountain is composed

(46:36):
of ancient metamorphic rock shot through with veins of quartz
and other minerals. Some researchers have suggested that these mineral
formations could create electromagnetic anomalies that affect the human brain,
causing disorientation, hallucinations, and altered states of consciousness. The meeting
of the four winds that the Abenaki described might create

(46:58):
additional atmospheric disturbances that amplify these effects. There were also
the numerous sinkholes that dotted the mountain, hidden traps that
could swallow a person in seconds. The area's geology, shaped
by glaciers and erosion, had created a landscape full of
hidden dangers. Perhaps the man eating stone of Abenaki legend

(47:19):
was simply their way of warning about these geological hazards.
But for many, the curse went beyond mere physical dangers.
They pointed to the pattern of violence that seemed to
follow the mountain, the murders of the eighteen nineties, the
harsh life of the logging camps, the way the town
had destroyed itself through exploitation and greed. It was as

(47:41):
if the mountain itself was malevolent, bringing out the worst
in people, drawing them to their doom. The fact that
many of the disappearances occurred in autumn seemed significant to some.
In Celtic and other traditions, autumn is when the veil
between worlds grows thin. The disappearances clustered in October, Novamber,
and December, the dying time of the year, when darkness

(48:04):
grows and life retreats. Perhaps there was something about this
season that made the mountain particularly dangerous. For decades after
the disappearances, the area around Glastonbury Mountain was simply known
locally as a place to avoid. Hikers were warned to
stay on marked trails, to never hike alone, to be
out of the woods before dark. Parents told their children's

(48:26):
stories about the missing people to keep them from wandering.
But it wasn't until nineteen ninety two that the region
got its now famous name. Joseph A. Citro, a Vermont
author who had spent years collecting New England folklore and
tales of the paranormal, was being interviewed on public radio
when he coined the phrase Bennington Triangle. He was deliberately

(48:48):
echoing the Bermuda Triangle, suggesting that just as that region
of the Atlantic had seen mysterious disappearances of ships and plains,
this region of Vermont had its own history of people
vanishing without explanation. The name caught on immediately. It gave
a framework for understanding the disappearances, a way to connect
isolated incidents into a pattern. Citro would go on to

(49:11):
write about the Bennington Triangle and several books, including Shadow
Child and Weird New England, cementing its place in American folklore.
Citro's research revealed that the five famous disappearances of nineteen
forty five to nineteen fifty were not isolated incidents. There
had been other disappearances over the years, less well documented

(49:32):
but persistent in local memory. There were the stories from
the logging days of men who went into the woods
and never came out. There were indigenous oral histories of
people swallowed by the mountain. There were more recent cases
that might or might not be connected. The creation of
the Bennington Triangle as a concept had an interesting effect.

(49:52):
On one hand, it brought attention to a genuinely mysterious
series of events that deserved investigation. On the other hand,
it attracted thrill seekers and amateur ghost hunters, who sometimes
put themselves in danger trying to experience something paranormal. The
mountain that had once swallowed people through indifference now drew
them through fascination. The official disappearances may have ended in

(50:16):
nineteen fifty, but strange things continued to happen in the
Bennington Triangle. In the nineteen seventies, a local man named
Robert Singly went missing for twenty seven hours in the
exact area where Paula Weldon had vanished. When found, he
was disoriented and couldn't explain what had happened to him
during the missing time. In nineteen ninety two, a hunter

(50:36):
reported finding a small cemetery deep in the woods near
Glastonbury Mountain, old stones with illegible markings clearly dating from
the town's inhabited period. When he tried to lead others
back to the spot, he couldn't find it again. Despite
multiple searches with GPS equipment, the cemetery has never been relocated.

(50:57):
In two thousand and eight, that same Robert Singley, now
twenty seven years old, and a trained composer, decided to
hike the long trail, entering at the same spot where
Paula Weldon had begun her fatal walk. Despite being an
experienced hiker with modern equipment, Singly became hopelessly lost. The
trail seemed to change before his eyes. Landmarks he had

(51:19):
passed seemed to vanish or move. When he finally found
his way out, he discovered he was miles from where
he thought he should be. In twenty fourteen, a group
of hikers reported finding a crude shelter made of woven
branches deep in the woods, too large for a normal
human dwelling, constructed in a way that didn't match any
known survival shelter techniques. They took photographs, but when they

(51:42):
tried to return with researchers they couldn't locate the structure again.
The advent of modern technology has added new dimensions to
the mystery trail. Cameras set up by hunters have captured
unexplained images, dark shapes that don't match any known animals,
lights where no lights should be, and, in one famous case,

(52:02):
what appears to be a human figure that vanishes between
frames shot seconds apart. GPS devices regularly malfunction on Glastonbury Mountain.
Cell phones lose signal in areas where they should have coverage.
Digital cameras capture anomalies orbs of light, mysterious shadows, figures
that weren't visible to the naked eye when the photo

(52:23):
was taken. Skeptics dismiss these as equipment malfunctions or photographic artifacts,
but the sheer volume of such incidents is striking today.
Glastonbury officially has a population of eight people. It exists
as a legal entity only because Vermont law requires that
all land belonged to some municipality. The town has no

(52:45):
local government. Its affairs are managed by a state appointed supervisor.
There are no services, no maintained roads, no signs of
the once thriving settlements at Fayville and South Glastonbury. But
the forest hasn't entirely reclaimed the land. Hikers on the
Long Trail, which still crosses Glastonbury Mountain occasionally report finding

(53:06):
remnants of the old town foundation, stones hidden under moss,
rusted pieces of machinery from the logging days, fragments of
the trolley tracks that once carried tourists up the mountain.
These artifacts are like bones poking through the earth, reminders
of the town's failed attempts at life. The Bennington Museum
maintains a small collection of artifacts from Glastonbury's inhabited period,

(53:31):
photographs of the logging camps, pieces of the old trolley,
documents from the town government. Looking at these items, it's
hard to imagine that a community once thrived here, that
children played in these woods, that people lived entire lives
on this mountain. Some of the old structures remain partially standing.
The stone foundations of the old hotel can still be found,

(53:53):
though they're overgrown and crumbling. Metal debris from the logging
equipment lies rusting in the underbrush. There are cellar holes
that once held homes, now filled with decades of fallen leaves,
and forests detrite us. These ruins have become pilgrimage sites
for those interested in the Bennington Triangle, though local authorities
discourage exploration due to safety concerns. Psychologists and sociologists have

(54:19):
studied the Bennington Triangle disappearances as a phenomenon that goes
beyond the simple facts of missing persons. Why do these
particular cases continue to fascinate us? Why does the idea
of the Bennington Triangle persist in popular culture? Part of
the answer lies in the nature of the disappearances themselves.
These weren't people who ran away who had reasons to disappear.

(54:43):
They weren't victims of obvious crimes with clear motives and suspects.
They simply vanished, leaving behind grieving families and unanswered questions.
The lack of closure is deeply unsettling to the human psyche.
There's also the setting to consider. The dark New inn
Land Forest has been a source of fear and fascination
since the Puritans first encountered it. It represents the unknown,

(55:07):
the untamed, the place where civilization ends and something older
and wilder begins. The stories of the Bennington Triangle tap
into primal fears about being lost, being hunted, being alone
in the wilderness. The cluster nature of the disappearances is
another factor. Our brains are patterned seeking machines, and five

(55:27):
disappearances in five years in roughly the same area seems
like it must mean something. We resist the idea that
it could be coincidence, that sometimes terrible things just happen
without reason or connection. The variety of the victims actually
makes the mystery more frightening, not less. If only young
women had disappeared or only elderly men. We could create

(55:49):
a profile, understand the danger, know who was at risk.
But the Bennington Triangle took anyone, young and old, male
and female, experienced wolodadsmen and casual hikers. No one was safe.
The Bennington Triangle has become a significant part of Vermont's
cultural landscape, though it's a part many locals would prefer

(56:10):
to forget. It has inspired novels, films, television episodes, and
countless Internet discussions. It's become a touchstone for discussions about
missing persons, about the dangers of the wilderness, about the
limits of rational explanation. Shirley Jackson's Hanksomen, inspired by Paula
Weldon's disappearance, is perhaps the most literary treatment of the subject. Jackson,

(56:35):
who lived in North Bennington and was familiar with the
local legends, created a psychological horror story that captures the
disorientation and dread associated with the triangle. The History Channel,
Discovery Channel, and various paranormal investigation shows have all produced
episodes about the Bennington Triangle. These range from serious documentary

(56:55):
treatments to sensationalized ghost hunting expeditions. The Mountain has become
a destination for paranormal tourists, much to the concern of
local authorities, who worry about unprepared people getting lost trying
to experience something supernatural. Online, the Bennington Triangle has developed
a robust community of researchers, theorists, and enthusiasts. Websites compile

(57:19):
every scrap of information about the disappearances. Forms debate theories
ranging from the plausible to the fantastic. YouTube videos analyze
the evidence, interview locals, and document expeditions to the mountain.
The triangle has also influenced how Vermont approaches wilderness safety.
The establishment of the Vermont State Police in nineteen forty

(57:42):
seven was directly influenced by the Paula Weldon case. Modern
search and rescue protocols in the state were shaped by
the lessons learned from these failed searches. Trail marking and
maintenance in the Green Mountain National Forest takes into account
the area's reputation for disorientation. The passage of decades, the
Bennington Triangle disappearances remain officially unsolved, and periodically new investigators

(58:07):
take up the cold cases. In the nineteen nineties, a
retired FBI agent reviewed all available evidence and concluded that
at least some of the disappearances were likely connected, though
he couldn't determine whether the connection was a serial killer
or something else. In two thousand and eight, a team
of researchers using ground penetrating radar searched areas of Glastonbury

(58:29):
Mountain looking for buried remains. They found several anomalies that
could have been graves, but excavation revealed only natural rock
formations and tree roots. The technology that should have made
it easier to find bodies only deepened the mystery of
why none had been found. Amateur investigators continued to explore
the triangle, sometimes with disturbing results. In twenty fifteen, a

(58:53):
group using metal detectors in the area where Middy Rivers
disappeared found several rifle cartridges that appeared to be from
the nineteen forties era. Could one have been the single
cartridge supposedly found after rivers vanished, or were they from
other hunters unconnected to the disappearance. Genetic genealogy, which has
solved numerous cold cases in recent years, offers limited help

(59:16):
with the Bennington Triangle. Without bodies, there's no DNA to
test The few physical items that might have belonged to
the victims, like the handkerchief possibly belonging to Rivers, have
been lost or destroyed over the decades. Some researchers have
attempted to use statistical analysis to determine if the cluster
of disappearances was truly unusual or just a coincidental grouping.

(59:41):
The results are inconclusive. Given the number of people who
hiked in the area during that period, five disappearances might
be within the range of statistical probability, but the complete
lack of resolution in most cases remains highly unusual. Today,
if you hike the long trail across Glastonbury Mountain, you
might not notice anything unusual. The path is well marked,

(01:00:04):
maintained by the Green Mountain Club. On a clear day,
the views from the fire tower at the summit are spectacular.
You can see for miles across the Green Mountains, across
a sea of forest that seems to go on forever.
But hikers still report strange experiences, Compasses that spin without reason,
the feeling of being watched, sounds that don't match any

(01:00:26):
known wildlife, time distortions, thinking you've been walking for an
hour only to check your watch and find three hours
have passed. Some hikers report an overwhelming urge to leave
the trail to walk into the woods, though they can't
explain why. The official stance of local authorities is that
the Bennington Triangle disappearances were tragic but unconnected incidents. The

(01:00:50):
wilderness is dangerous, they point out. People get lost, have accidents,
suffer medical emergencies. In the nineteen forties, without modern search
and REDS techniques, without helicopters and heat sensing equipment and GPS,
it's not surprising that some missing people were never found.
But this rational explanation doesn't satisfy everyone. It doesn't explain

(01:01:13):
James Tedford's impossible disappearance from a bus. It doesn't explain
why FRIEDA. Langer's body appeared in a previously searched area.
It doesn't explain the pattern five people in five years
than nothing. The families of the disappeared have mostly passed away,
now taking their grief and their unanswered questions with them.
PAULA Weldon's father died in nineteen seventy, never knowing what

(01:01:36):
happened to his daughter. Paul Jepson's parents went to their
graves wondering if their son had been taken, or had
wandered off following some call only he could hear. The
pain of not knowing, survivor said, was worse than the
pain of loss. At least, with death there's closure. With disappearance,
there's only endless wondering. The Bennington Triangle remains active in

(01:01:58):
one sense. It continues to attract those who seek to
understand it. Every year, people come to Glastonbury Mountain hoping
to experience something paranormal or to solve the mystery once
and for all. Most leave disappointed or merely unsettled. A
few claim to have had experiences they can't explain, and occasionally,
very occasionally, someone doesn't leave at all. In two thousand

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and eight, a hiker went missing for several days in
the exact area where Paula Weldon vanished. He was found
alive but disoriented, unable to explain where he'd been. In
twenty eleven, a woman reported that her hiking companion had
vanished on the trail. One moment he was behind her,
the next he was gone. He reappeared hours later, confused

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and frightened, with no memory of the missing time. These
modern incidents don't make headlines. The way the nineteen forties
disappearances did. They're explained away as confusion, exhaustion, or attention seeking,
but they suggest that whatever happened on Glastonbury Mountain in
those five years wasn't a discreete event with a beginning
and an end. Maybe it's something about the place itself,

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something that was true before humans ever set foot there
and will remain true long after the last traces of
Glastonbury Town have crumbled into dust. The Green Mountain Club's
guide to the Long Trail includes a brief note about
the history of the area, mentioning the ghost town of
Glastonbury and noting that several disappearances occurred in the area

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in the nineteen forties. They recommend hiking in groups, staying
on marked trails, and being prepared for sudden weather changes.
They don't mention the Bennington Triangle by name. They don't
need to. Every local hiker knows the stories. Some nights,
especially in late autumn, when the leaves have fallen and
the bear trees scratch against a darkening sky, locals say

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you can see lights on Glastonbury Mountain, lights where no
lights should be. Some say it's hikers with flashlights, though
the trails are officially closed after dark. Some say it's
the ghosts of the vanished, still trying to find their
way home. Some say it's something else entirely, something that
has no name, because the people who see it clearly

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enough to name it don't come back to tell about it.
The Abinaki were right to avoid the mountain, to use
it only for burying their dead. They understood something that
European settlers, in their hunger for land and resources, failed
to grasp. Some places are not meant for the living.
Some mountains don't want to be climbed. Some forests don't

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want to be explored. Glastonbury Mountain stands today much as
it has for millennia, dark forested, largely untouched by human development.
The trees that have grown up since the logging days
are approaching maturity. In another generation or two, there will
be little visible evidence that humans ever tried to claim
this place. The last foundations will crumble, the last artifacts

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will rust away, and the forest will reclaim everything. But
the stories will remain. The names of the vanished Middy Rivers,
Paula Weldon, James Tedford, Paul Jepson, FRIEDA. Langer have become
part of the mountains legend, as permanent as the granite
beneath the soil. They are cautionary tales, mysteries without solutions,

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reminders that for all our technology and knowledge, there are
still places where people can simply disappear. The Bennington Triangle
endures as a reminder of the limits of human understanding.
We can map every trail, photograph every square foot from satellites,
analyze soil and rock and weather patterns, but we cannot

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explain where five people went in five years. We cannot
bring them back, We cannot even find them. Perhaps that's
the most terrifying truth of all. Not that monsters lurk
in the wilderness, not that portals to other dimensions hide
among the trees, not that serial killers stalk the trails.
The most terrified truth is that sometimes people simply vanish,

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and we never find out why. The mountain keeps its secrets,
the forest holds its silence, and the disappeared remain disappeared.
Somewhere on Glastonbury Mountain, the wind still meets from four directions,
creating patterns that confuse and disorient. Somewhere in those woods,
there may be bones that were once middy rivers or

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Paula Weldon hidden so well that seventy years of searching
hasn't found them Somewhere. Perhaps there are answers, but the
Mountain isn't telling. The Bennington Triangle remains what it has
always been, a place where the impossible happens, where the
rational world meets something older and stranger, where people go

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in but don't always come out. It stands as a
testament to the enduring power of mystery in an age
that thinks it has explained everything, And perhaps on some
level we don't want the mystery solved. Perhaps we need
places like the Bennington Triangle, dark spots on the map,
question marks in our understanding of the world. They remind

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us that for all our civilization and sophistication, we are
still small, fragile creatures in a vast and not entirely
comprehensible universe. The Mountain watches and waits patient, as stone
older than memory. It has swallowed logging towns and tourist dreams,
hunters and hikers, the confident and the lost. It will

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swallow more before its story is done. The Bennington Triangle
is not history. It's a continuing presence, a reminder that
some mysteries are not meant to be solved. Walk carefully
if you venture onto Glastonbury Mountain, stay on the marked trails,
don't hike alone. Be out of the woods before dark,

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and if you hear something calling your name from deep
in the forest. If you feel an inexplicable urge to
leave the path, if you notice that the trees look
different than they did a moment ago, turn back. Turn
back while you still can't, because the mountain is hungry
and it has been a long time since it fed.

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Di do